The Destruction of the Canaanites: God, Genocide, and Biblical Interpretation
Digital Verbum Edition
Overview
How can a good God command genocide?
In this short, accessible offering, Charlie Trimm provides the resources needed to make sense of one of the Bible’s most difficult ethical problems—the Israelite destruction of the Canaanites as told in the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, and Judges.
Trimm begins with a survey of important background issues, including the nature of warfare in the ancient Near East, the concept of genocide (with perspectives gleaned from the field of genocide studies), and the history and identity of the Canaanite people. With this foundation in place, he then introduces four possible approaches to reconciling biblical violence:
- Reevaluating God—concluding that God is not good.
- Reevaluating the Old Testament—concluding that the Old Testament is not actually a faithful record of God’s actions.
- Reevaluating the interpretation of the Old Testament—concluding that the Old Testament does not in fact describe anything like genocide.
- Reevaluating the nature of violence in the Old Testament—concluding that the mass killing of the Canaanites in the Old Testament was permitted on that one occasion in history.
The depth of material provided in concise form makes Trimm’s book ideal as a supplementary textbook or as a primer for any Christian perturbed by the stories of the destruction of the Canaanites in the Old Testament.
This is a Logos Reader Edition. Learn more.
- Provides the resources needed to make sense of one of the Bible’s most difficult ethical problems
- Explores the history and identity of the Canaanite people
- Includes a survey of important background issues
Table of Contents
Part One: Background
1. Warfare in the Ancient Near
East
2. Genocide
3. Canaanites
Part Two: YHWH and the Destruction of the Canaanites
4. Reevaluating God
5. Reevaluating the Old
Testament
6. Reevaluating the
Interpretation of the Old Testament
7. Reevaluating Violence in the
Old Testament
Part Three: Conclusion
Top Highlights
“On the other hand, YHWH also judges Israel when they sin. If Israel were to act like the Canaanites, YHWH would judge them in the same way he judged the Canaanites (Lev. 18:28; Deut. 28:25–68).32 When the Israelites become worse than the Canaanites at the end of the book of Judges, as illustrated in the comparison of the Israelite city Gibeah to Sodom and Gomorrah (compare Judg. 19 with Gen. 19), then herem is effectively brought against the tribe of Benjamin (Judg. 20). God is not racist, but judges all those who oppose him and act in sinful ways. His primary opponent is sin, not the Canaanites.” (Page 84)
“Were they worse sinners than other nations? It seems that this would be a very hard argument to make, especially when texts like Leviticus 18:3 combine the wickedness of Canaan with that of Egypt.” (Page 80)
“but his argument requires a large number of merely ‘possible’ interpretations to come together to make it work.” (Page 74)
“First, the New Testament accepts the stories of the Old Testament, including the violent ones” (Page 61)
“the cost of being able to trust the Old Testament as a reliable document.” (Page 64)
Reviews
2 ratings
Alessandro
12/9/2022
Glenn Crouch
7/20/2022
This is an excellent little book that presents the various “solutions” proposed to the accounts in Joshua and elsewhere in regards to possible genocide and at the very least God-ordained violence. Having read several of the authors he has included, I found that his summary of the views (at least of those I had read) to be reasonably fair. Likewise I thought his covering of the problems with the various views to be quite fair - and to pretty much mirror my own concerns. In presenting 4 views, and pointing out the “problems” with each them, we are then left without a solution - which I quite liked. The Author is not pretending to solve our hermeneutical quagmire, but to help us better think about it. To do this, he has also supplied quite a good bibliography (often missing from small books) that allows the reader to further engage with the topics and approaches raised. Highly recommended for all serious readers of Scripture.
